Re: [gNewSense-users] gNewsense in very old hardware

[Jason Self]

> I would like to start using a GNU/Linux enterily free, and I was
> wondering if there a way to install gNewsense in very old hardware (I
> mean PIII 633 mhz. with 128 MB of RAM) because the current
> installation don't let me. Beside, and in part that's a razon I'm
> currently using Debian, I was wondering if there a installation way
> like Debian (i.e. text mode with really very low hardware
> requierements and, if wanted, very few soft installed afterwards).

In the world of Ubuntu 8.04 (on which gNewSense is based), this is  
partly accomplished by an alternate install CD that boots into a text- 
based installer. It appears that gNewSense does not offer such an  
option at this time, although it would be nice.

Even if such an option were available, though, in reviewing the  
alternate install CD for Ubuntu 8.04 it appears that only the  
installer is different: It appears that even this minimal text-based  
installer still installs the full desktop environment. As a result,  
even if you could boot the installer you would still run into the  
issue of running the full desktop environment.

The Debian installer definitely is better in this area: You can use  
the same installer in graphical or text mode, and arrange for a /very/  
minimal installation (enough to boot the machine to a shell and not  
much more.) Even on systems that /are/ able to run the full desktop  
environment, this "less is more" philosophy is definitely appealing to  
me. I think of it as more of an "opt-in" way of installing things  
where I get to specify just exactly what I want, as opposed to the  
installer used by Ubuntu, and hence gNewSense, where it's more "opt- 
out" (I get a standard install and then remove what I don't want.)